Referring now to FIG. 1, a functional block diagram of an exemplary transmission system according to the prior art is presented. The system includes an access point 102 and a client device 104. The access point 102 includes a wired Internet connection 106, an encoder 108, a processor 110, and a network interface 112. The client device 104 includes a network interface 120, a fixed-rate MP3 (MPEG layer 3) decoder 122, and a 2.5 millimeter audio jack 124. The wired Internet connection 106 receives media information from a distributed communications system such as the Internet. This media information is communicated to the processor 110, which communicates it to the encoder 108. The encoder 108 compresses the media information using a coding scheme such as MP3. The processor 110 communicates the compressed media information to the network interface 112.
The network interface 112 transmits, optionally using antenna 126, the compressed media information, which is received by the network interface 120, optionally using antenna 128, of the client device 104. The network interface 120 communicates the compressed media information to the decoder 122. The decoder 122 decodes the compressed media information and outputs the uncompressed media information to the audio jack 124. The system depicted here attempts to save power at the client device 104, which may be running on batteries, by transmitting compressed media information and therefore using as little bandwidth as possible.